Urban League's Backpack Giveaway Becomes Community Event In Hartford

SAVANNAH MUL

HARTFORD — Children and their families lined up in front of the Urban League of Greater Hartford on Woodland Street on Saturday for the annual backpack giveaway.

This year, though, it became a day-long community event with food and entertainment. Adrienne Cochrane, president and CEO of Urban League, said organizers decided to do something different as part of the celebration of the organization's 50-year anniversary.

"This is part of a yearlong celebration," Cochrane said. "It's our backpack giveaway and we wanted the community to be part of it, so people know that this is a community organization that belongs to them."

A CTfastrak bus arrived around 1 p.m. filled with backpacks. Brad Agba, 11, anxiously waiting in line to receive his blue-and-green tie-dyed backpack.

"It's awesome," Brad said when asked about his first two weeks of school at the Medical Professions and Teacher Preparation Academy in New Britain.

Karolina Pagan, a Hartford resident, was with her 5-year-old son, Corey Velazquez, who is in kindergarten at the Burns Academy. Corey's face was painted with a Spider-Man design — face-painting was among the activities at the event — and he said, "I started school already. I'm excited for the backpack."

Children also received books after they were given backpacks.

Pagan said she takes classes at the Urban League, and when she saw that the group was holding a backpack giveaway, she decided to and wanted to bring her son.

"It's a really nice event," she said.

There were many food vendors and jewelry merchants along with musical entertainment in the Urban League parking lot.

Aleema Kelly, a fifth-grader at the Montessori Magnet School in Hartford, attended with her brother, Naieem, an eighth-grader at Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts Magnet Middle School, as they waited in line to get their backpacks and school supplies.